Averaging Data

In as much as bad data invalidates the claims and facts of an argument, is averaging of numbers itself or can the process be a specific fallacy? Is it named yet? If not can we? It takes out the volatility, and can mislead the audience about the long term danger of, especially, the stock market.

Do you mean short term risks? Averaging actually helps one to better understand the long-term effects. There is no fallacy here, unless this is somehow put into an argument/claim context, then we can look at the argument/claim for any specific fallacies.

the problem is three fold before we can consider it a fallacy or not: (1) Proper statistical analysis is not simply 'averaging data.' More information is required here before we go on. (2) "In as much as bad data invalidates the claims and facts of an argument . . ." This eliminates any question of making a determination of any sort of fallacy, because a bad data set disqualifies it if consideration other than rejecting it on bad methodology and sampling and simply rejecting the data and methodoly. (3) What are the conclusions based on the presuppositions and the data involved, if valid

Even if the data and methodology were valid, it would be the conclusions that may be fallacious depending how they determined and what presuppositions are assumed in the research. It is possible that there may be a non sequitur in an argument here if the conclusions do not follow the presuppositions and the research.

There's no arguments here so no fallacies.
If you were to say the data shows more people support this so it's good etc...Ad populum fallacy
If you were to say data shows the stock market increases when corporate taxes are lowered and that's what the data says most of the time but only during Republican controlled house and Congress or Senate etc.. that a biased sample fallacy.. If this is about two people just post the conversation that one makes and their conclusion on their position, it'll help.

Averaging of numbers itself is not a fallacy. By averaging numbers, you are including in your argument the predicate that averaging numbers in the scenario is valid. That of course depends on the scenario.

I wouldn't call averaging of numbers a fallacy, since it can sometimes be a valid operation.

{My comments will briefly address Averages (only) in the context of logical fallacy. There is another related discussion that might examine other statistical tools and techniques relating to predictive modeling and forecasting, but we’ll save that for another day & possible question.}

I’m reminded of the old joke that anyone having taken a course in Statistics has probably heard:

“My head is in a hot oven and my feet are in a freezer but ON AVERAGE I feel just fine.”

This little joke points to a serious potential flaw in taking Averages too monolithically, i.e., drawing conclusions about ‘reality’ from averaging a handful of data points.

Most of us accept it as given that if we use or collect “bad data” in e.g., conducting an experiment or compiling a survey, the results will be skewed and any conclusions formed will likely be erroneous. (After all, we’ve been conditioned to accept GI=GO).

Far more insidious are the possibilities for reaching a wrong or misleading conclusion (given the data is collected properly) arising from misapplication or misunderstanding of analytical statistical techniques; numerical averaging is one of the most basic.

The little joke above points to one glaring problem with averages (there are others): the distribution of the data points, and whether this distribution is normal. If your data points in a survey or experiment fall in a tight cluster, the conclusions drawn from taking a simple average will likely mirror ‘reality’. If the data points are widely & abnormally distributed, a simple average of them (alone) will likely be very misleading. (Plotting out the points using a histogram will help reveal this.)

While it is clear that Averaging can be misused and conclusions drawn from so doing can be fallacious, I agree with Bo, this kind of thing is case specific and of itself does not constitute a generic Logical Fallacy.

However, there are many references in the literature relating to “The Fallacy of Averages” and some make interesting reading, e.g.:

http://derekpilling.com/fallacy-averages/

http://www.seekfind.net/Misuse_of_Averages_Fallacy.html#.WJEGP4L7-6M

https://medium.com/@vsglukhov/the-fallacy-of-averages-are-boys-better-in-math-than-girls-dcf3ffad315#.380m7x89i